


when everything’s lost (they pick up their hearts and avenge defeat)

by MYuzuki



Series: No matter what’s in front of me (I’ll keep fighting til I’ve won) [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV, Kingsglaive
Genre: (as in Nyx and Crowe both died but time travel undid it), Angst with a Happy Ending, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26135326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MYuzuki/pseuds/MYuzuki
Summary: The bitch of it is, Nyx realizes later as he struggles to explain to Crowe why she absolutely cannot accept a classified mission from their commanding officer without really explaining why she can’t do it, is that he can’t risk telling anyone the truth.Not yet, at least.And if he’s being realistic, probably never.
Relationships: Crowe Altius & Nyx Ulric
Series: No matter what’s in front of me (I’ll keep fighting til I’ve won) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1897525
Comments: 7
Kudos: 135





	when everything’s lost (they pick up their hearts and avenge defeat)

**when everything’s lost (they pick up their hearts and avenge defeat)**

* * *

The bitch of it is, Nyx realizes later as he struggles to explain to Crowe why she absolutely cannot accept a classified mission from their commanding officer without _really_ explaining why she can't do it, is that he can't risk telling anyone the truth. Not yet, at least. And if he's being realistic, probably never.

Because he knows himself and more importantly he knows how other people think, how they react. He doesn't always understand their motivations and as Drautos's betrayal made all too clear he's obviously a shit judge of character and far too trusting when it comes to authority figures, but on the whole he's pretty good at understanding what makes people tick and how they'll respond in a crisis.

And it doesn't take much understanding to realize that if he tells the truth? If he starts talking about waking up in the past after borrowing power from the long-dead ancient kings of Lucis to fight the turncoat commander of the Kingsglaive in the middle of a Niflheim invasion?

He's going to get arrested, thrown in a padded cell, and brought up on charges of treason and defamation of character. Not necessarily in that order, depending on how badly such a declaration would be received, but the point stands.

There's also the fact that Crowe is standing in front of him, she's _alive_ , and it's all he can do to not just crumple at her feet and start weeping. Given that, it's a miracle that he's even managing to hold even a moderately coherent conversation in the first place. And, of course, turning into a hysterical sobbing mess won't him him any sanity points, either, so he's got to hold it together.

(Of course, the whole trying-to-keep-calm thing isn't helped much by the fact that the last time he'd seen Crowe, she'd been a _corpse_. And not a particularly attractive one, either, since her body had been more or less dumped in a garbage heap and left to decompose in the wasteland.

He still remembers standing in the morgue, looking down at the tattered remains of one of the strongest women he'd ever had the privilege to know. Still remembers Libertus at his side, grieving and furious and so, so lost in a world without Crowe. Still remembers the cold vise of grief gripping his heart, ice running through his veins as he struggled to process the loss of one his closest friends.

It's not like he hadn't seen a dead body before; even before joining the Kingsglaive he'd been exposed to the horrors of war and all the death that came with them when the Empire had invaded Galahd, slaughtering his people left, right, and center.

But Crowe was his friend, one of the few people Nyx considered _his_ in that special way that was just one small step away from being family. She was his like Libertus was his, like Pelna was his after everything.

Nyx had never really recovered from the loss of his sister Selena and their mother, had never really patched together the parts of him that had broken because he hadn't been strong enough to protect them, to protect _anything_. And to let people close again, only to experience that terrible clawing grief again?

He doesn't think he's strong enough to survive that sort of grief again, not after everything.

Besides, Crowe is his friend and she deserves a better ending that what she'd gotten.)

So he needs to convince Crowe to not take the mission despite not actually having a solid reason that _she'll_ understand for why she shouldn't. And since Crowe is Crowe, it's proving to be something of an ordeal. Especially since she's already prickly because of the ceasefire that had been declared just half an hour ago.

And maybe it's just because Nyx is about six rough days and a dozen vicious battles removed from his own recollection of the original ceasefire, the one from before he'd gotten punted into the past, but he's having trouble working up the appropriate levels of indignation and disappointment over what, to him, has already happened.

It's not like the ceasefire is real anyway, although he supposes that he can't say anything about that, either.

Or can he?

 _It's worth a shot_ , he muses, and cuts off whatever Crowe had been in the middle of saying. "Look, I understand that you're pissed over me wanting you to stay out of the field for a while-"

"You're damn right I am," she snaps, bristling with irritation.

"-but it's not because I'm trying to steal your thunder or anything, I promise." He knows she'll believe that, because it's the truth; despite his bouts of so-called heroics on the battlefield, he's never had much interest in glory and all of his close friends know that. "I've just got a bad feeling about this ceasefire bullshit and was hoping you could look into a few things for me, here in Insomnia. You get along better with people than I do," he adds when all she does is arch an expectant eyebrow at him. "They might actually answer questions if you're the one asking, rather than me."

She snorts, disgruntled but clearly also amused. "I get along with people better than you because I don't rely solely on sarcasm and witty one-liners for communication," she remarks dryly, and ignores him when he mimes getting shot in the heart. "What, specifically, did you want me to look into?"

Nyx hesitates, grasping for something, anything, he can throw at Crowe and have her believe. The trickiest thing is that there has to be a grain of truth in it, too, otherwise she's going to see right through his misdirection in a heartbeat. There needs to be a real prize at the end of the goose chase he's sending her on, otherwise his already-shabby plan is going to fall to pieces around him.

Then he realizes that maybe he can help Crowe get vengeance for herself, even if she doesn't realize it, doesn't know that she deserves justice for an unjust death she had in a different time. "I've heard a few rumors floating around," he says now, lowering his voice just on the off-chance someone is passing by in the hall outside. "About Niflheim informants, here in Insomnia."

Crowe's eyes widen. "Spies?" she whispers, the words practically a hiss. "Here?"

"It would make sense," Nyx points out. "I mean, we're at war, ceasefire bullshit aside. And yeah, we're kind of losing, but despite everything they haven't been able to beat us in a fair fight, so it stands to reason that they'd try something underhanded, right? Look, I'm not saying there's someone committing subterfuge on every street-corner," he goes on, noting the way Crowe's expression is starting to taken on that determined slant, her jaw clenching as her eyes narrow. "But given the timing of the ceasefire…it's a little suspicious, isn't it?"

"More than a little," Crowe agrees after a moment of thought. "Where do you think I should start digging?"

"I'm not sure," Nyx replies, because as much as he wants desperately to just point her at Luche Lazarus and have her rip him to shreds with one of her fiery tornadoes, he's smart enough to realize that doing that would be like him going after Glauca right this very moment, if on a slightly smaller scale. It would be messy and people would start asking questions and things might end up worse than if Nyx hadn't said anything at all, so he can't do that. "Look, why don't you take Libertus with you, go see if the Crownsguard has anything that might point you in the right direction. See if they have any reports of unusual activity in the city, anything you think might be relevant."

Crowe, predictably, makes a face like she's just bitten into something sour and rotten. "Nyx, you can't be serious. Not only is that _very_ vague, Crownsguard and Kingsglaive don't play well together, you know that."

"I do know that," he acknowledges, because the Crownsguard are all Lucian citizens, many of whom look down on the Glaive for being a fighting force comprised mostly of refugees. There's not a lot of outright fighting between the two groups, but there's no denying the tension that's always lurking whenever a Guard and Glaive are forced into close proximity for any significant length of time.

He can't quite bring himself to really care about that now, though. After all, what does a stupid rivalry between their two military groups _matter_ , when all of Insomnia might be in ruins a week from now if Nyx doesn't find a way to stop it? There's so much more at stake here than what anyone else realizes and it's enough to make him want to _scream_.

He settles for tugging on his hair in frustration, though, because if he starts spontaneously screaming Crowe will light his ass on fire on general principle and not let him say another word. "Just _try_ , okay?" he asks now, and if his voice comes out rough and on the edge of pleading, he thinks it can be forgiven given the circumstances. He'd been _dead_ just a few hours ago, after all. "Please, just…try. For me. I'll take whatever mission the commander gives you next and you can have my paid leave on top of it, if you'll please just look into this for me."

Crowe purses her lips as she looks at him, gaze piercing in a way that makes him cross his arms in a gesture that's not quite defensive but pretty close

(He loves Crowe like family, but _damn_ is the girl terrifying sometimes.)

"Alright, fine," she says at long last, hands on her hips as she scowls at him. "But if you fuck up whatever mission Commander Drautos gives you, I will never let you hear the end of it, you understand me? Because that's _my_ mission you'll be fulfilling by proxy and you damn well better get the job done."

Nyx refrains from reminding her that technically he outranks her and as such is more than qualified for whatever mission their commander (their _betrayer_ ) might give, because while he's willing to sacrifice his life for the greater good he's still not _actively suicidal_ , thank you very much.

Besides, too much confidence on his part means he'd have to explain that he already knows what that mission is (and knows that it's a sham of a farce of a set-up _at best)_ , and that would ruin his whole don't-tell-anyone plan. So he just says, "I know, I know," in the long-suffering tone he knows Crowe finds amusing and irritating by turns. Then, because he's an idiot who can't _not_ warn one of his best friends to be careful, even if that warning is oblique, "Keep an eye on Lazarus while I'm gone, too, will you? His attitude the last couple days has me…concerned."

Crowe narrows her eyes on him. "Why do I get the feeling you mean that in an 'I suspect he's up to something' sort of way and not in an 'I'm worried about him' sort of way?" she asks, voice tinged with suspicion.

"The two aren't mutually exclusive," Nyx notes dryly, even as that familiar burn of grief and rage flickers in his chest again. "I'm worried about him _because_ I suspect he's up to something. I doubt he's the only one," he adds, because as much as he hates it, it needs to be said. "You know as well as I do that our people are upset about the ceasefire, and Luche has always been a bit…" Nyx tries and fails to come up with a single word that will describe all things Luche Lazarus is and isn't, and instead settles for, "I just don't want anyone doing anything monumentally stupid because they're angry, that's all." Monumentally stupid here having the meaning of turning traitor against the kingdom they'd sworn their loyalty to, but Nyx is trying _very hard_ not to say that outright; he's given Crowe enough hints already, anything more and he might as well just explain the whole thing and get himself wrapped up in a straightjacket for his trouble.

Crowe, to her credit, just regards him with an exceptionally intense expression for another long moment before she finally relents with a shrug after seemingly realizing that he's not going to say anything more on the subject. "Yeah, okay, I'll keep an eye on him for you; I'll text you if he does anything out of the ordinary, alright?"

Nyx lets out a breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Yeah, that'd be great, thanks. I know it's a lot to ask, but-"

"No problem," Crowe replies easily, cutting him off before he can even finish apologizing because she is an _amazing_ friend whose loyalty Nyx probably doesn't deserve. "Obviously this is important to you, so I'll do my best. And I can conscript Pelna to help me monitor Luche if I can't manage it on my own," she adds. "Assuming of course that he's not on the list of people you find suspicious?"

Nyx snorts, shaking his head. "Nah, Pelna's good people, you can trust him." He can still remember Pelna's voice over the comms, expressing alarm and outrage over the other Glaives' betrayal of their oath even as he tried to offer Nyx what little support he could. "Just…be careful, alright?"

Crowe's eyebrows fly up towards her hairline. "You really are worried," she says, sounding faintly surprised, and more than a little worried in her own right now.

"I wouldn't be asking you to do this if I wasn't," he replies honestly, because he wants to be as truthful as he can with Crowe but saying _I don't want to mourn you twice_ would only complicate the conversation for obvious reasons.

Crowe reaches out and punches him lightly on the shoulder, her version of a reassuring hug. "Well, you can count on me," she promises. "So you go do your hero thing. Lib, Pelna, and I will handle things here."

"Thanks," he says, favoring her with a grateful smile before he turns around and heads for the exit.

"What are you going to tell Commander Drautos, though?" she calls after him. "For why you're taking the mission instead of me, I mean."

Nyx swallows hard and forces himself to keep walking even as his stomach churns with a level of dread and fury that's almost sickening. "I'm sure I'll think of something," he says, casual and careless when he feels anything but.


End file.
